Case Background
Coral hotel is located at Hamilton Island, Queensland; it is located on a reef environment, it has some very good rooms, dining and bar facilities, however the facility has recorded one of the lowest customer satisfaction rates in the area. This paper analyzes the reason for the low satisfaction and gives recommendation on the way forward.
Problems facing Coral Hotel
The issues facing the hotel can be classified into three main categories as follow:
- Poor leadership
Leadership is paramount for the success of a business, after an employee has been deployed, the leaders have the role of monitoring, training and mentoring the entrant, however this does not happen in Coral Hotel. Secondly the leaders are not consistent and neither do they keep their words, Julie when she was deployed had been promised proper mentorship and training programs to follow, this was not done, she confesses and says she only got to hour induction program, of which was not personalized (Armstrong, 2008) .
When an employee is not well mentored, then the result is always low performance and low understanding of the industry. The hotel has employed Generation Y staff; people who need motivation and mentorship to perform, when not well managed, they have the energy and will to look for better employers, this probably has made the hotel have high staff turnover. Employees are not involved in decision making neither are they consulted when decisions are made; this is a quality of inefficient leadership (Hill and Stewart, 2000).
- Communication issues
The hotel suffers from lack of good communication between the staff and the management, generation Y population need to open up and offer their views in different issues facing them and their profession. Managers are not creating an environment that can facilitate communication within the organization either at personal level or when at meetings. Julie confesses that the only time managers are referring to employees is when they are complaining or giving orders, this has created a power culture in the organization. Without flow of information, then the company is bound not to attain its targets neither will it be able to satisfy its customers (Kohl, Milton, and Jacqueline ,2004).
- Weak human resources policies
Human resources management has the role of creating good employee relations; it is the link between the top management and the employees; in the case of Coral Hotel, the department’s role is seen to end with deployment; it has not been able to create frameworks of training, retaining, motivating and developing human resources.
Julie complains that despite her being new to the hospitality industry, she had not been mentored and trained to tap her intellectualism or to sharpen her skills; this is so despite being given a promise that it will be done. Secondly, despite her being in the hotel for the last four months, her working schedule was structured in a way that she could hardly meet her expenses; this portrays a weak reward system adopted by the facility.
The human resources department has no frameworks that can assist employee’s air their complaints out; there are hardly any staff meetings unless there is something that the management want to complain. In case an employee has done a commendable job, the management lacks motivational policies in their framework, they do not offer recognition in the form of promotions or through other similar rewards.
The human resources department has failed to realize the management approach they are supposed to use for generation Y population, although the age gap between the managers and the staffs is manageable, the management have opted to live in their cocoon of power. The low motivation of staffs and lack of communication leads to poor customer service (Legge, 2004).
Recommendation
The way forward for the company is to restructure its management system and adopt an effective management system. The process world start by mentorship of the management class, on the role that human resources management and effective leadership are all about.
The following are the areas that need to be trained on:
- Leadership style
Generation Y population requires special leadership traits that manages can learn, particularly, they need to be monitored and the company should have good communication methods which allows a two way flow of information. Managers should appreciate that the success of a facility is dependent on the quality and the satisfaction of their staff, they should know that human resources is the greatest asset they have thus they need to mentor and manage it effectively (Swanson and Elwood, 2009).
The most appropriate leadership style that the management can implement is democratic leadership approach where staffs and the management participate in making business decisions, this can however be facilitated by implementation of an effective communication system.
The hotel lacks team leadership, the way teams have been structure are not blended in the right manner, generation Y population and the older generation need to be blended effectively for the success of an organization. An effective team has the strength and weaknesses of a team blend that they benefit the organization (Harold and Michael,1994).
- Develop effective human resources management strategy
For an effective operation, organizations need human and physical resources; properly managed organizations have an appropriate number of personnel’s, in number, experience and expertise. To ensure that the right number of people is available when required, a company’s human resource management should develop effective framework of planning human resources.
An appropriate human resource planning will ensure that the company develops an orchestrate team, the process starts with recruitment, training, retaining, motivating and release of deployment of employees effectively (Ardichvili and Khalil, 2005).
The structure of the hotels human resources department should be looked into to develop frameworks that ensures appropriate in quality and quantity are deployed, after deployed, they should be well oriented in the organization and adequate measure taken to ensure they understand the organizational culture of the hotel (the hotel should adopt a freelance culture of service).
The reward system should be looked into and the human resources should understand that people work to satisfy their human needs; if employees are not able to satisfy their human needs, then the hotel will continue to face high staff turnover.
Motivation is defined as the drive that keeps employees working; Coral Hotel human resources should develop adequate motivation policies which starts with good communication within the facility; when staffs are motivated, they will offer high quality service and will be willing to work longer in the hotel.
Developing the framework developed above needs experts guidance, the hotel should looks for a mentor to assist in the development of appropriate strategies, the mentor may be Consultation Company or they can contract the services of a freelance consultant (Bruce and Fottler, 2005)
References
Armstrong, M.,2008 A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. London: Kogan Page.
Ardichvili, A. and Khalil, D.,2005. Human capital practices of Russian enterprises. Human Resource Development International ,8(4),pp. 403-418.
Bruce, F. and Fottler, M.,2005. Human Resources in Health Care, Managing for Success. Michigan: Health Administration Press.
Harold, O. and Michael, D.,1994. Motivation: theory and research. New Jersey: Routledge, 1994.
Hill, R. and Stewart, J.,2000. Human resource development in small organizations. Journal of European Industrial Training , 24(4 ), p. 105.
Kohl, J., Milton, M. and Jacqueline, M.,2004. Human Resource Regulation and Legal Issues: Web Sites for Instructional and Training Development. Journal of Education for Business .79(6): p. 339.
LLegge, K.,2004. Human Resource Management: Rhetorics and Realities (Anniversary ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmill.
Swanson, R. and Elwood, H.,2009. Foundations of Human Resource Development: Easy read Large Edition. San Franscico: Read How You Want Press.